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Writing in Maya Glyphs Book 1: Writing in Maya Glyphs Names, Places, & Simple Sentences A Non-Technical Introduction to MAYA GLYPHS by Mark Pitts in collaboration with Lynn Matson The Aid and Education Project, Inc. ‘ El Proyecto de Ayuda y Educación ‘ This book is dedicated to the Maya people living today in Mesoamerica. We wish to thank those persons who helped us in the preparation of this book. Thanks to John Harris and the Philadelphia Pre-Columbian Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Also, for their comments and corrections, we thank Jorge Raymundo Velásquez, Martín Chacach Cutzal, and Ajpub’ Pablo García Ixmatá of the Instituto de Lingüística y Educación at the Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala. We also thank Ana Urizar for her helpful suggestions. © The Aid and Education Project, Inc., 2008 Title Page Top: The Stingray Paddler (far left) and the Jaguar Paddler (far right) row the Maize God (center) and mythological beasts. Title Page Bottom: The Canoe sinks, symbolizing the sinking of the Milky Way as the night progresses. 2 Writing in Maya Glyphs Names, Places, & Simple Sentences A Non-Technical Introduction Table of Contents Part 1: Writing Names of People and Places CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION: THE ANCIENT MAYA AND THEIR WRITING • History • The Basics Of Ancient Maya Writing • Glyphs That Stand For Syllables • Glyphs That Stand for Whole Words • Writing Words With Glyphs • Blocks Of Glyphs 3 CHAPTER 2 – HOW TO WRITE YOUR NAME IN MAYA GLYPHS • Step 1: Divide Your Name Into Maya Syllables • Step 2: Find Your Syllables In the Syllabary Chart • Step 3: Place the Glyphs In a Glyph Block • Some Examples CHAPTER 3 – MAYA TITLES, PROFESSIONS, AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS • Personal Titles • Traditional and Modern Maya Professions • Family Relationships CHAPTER 4 – NAMES OF TOWNS IN MAYA GLYPHS • Combining Names and Titles • Using Logos to Write Names of Towns • Vocabulary • Glyphs Of the Great Maya Cities CHAPTER 5 – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER TO WRITE SIMPLE SENTENCES CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY CREDITS FOR IMAGES 4 Chapter 1 Introduction: The Ancient Maya & Their Writing Lady Xook has a vision of an ancestor, October, 681 5 History You are about to begin to study one of the world’s most beautiful forms of writing, the hieroglyph writing of the ancient Maya. At the same time you will learn about one of the world’s most remarkable civilizations. In the history of the world, there have been few people like the ancient Maya. The Maya were great architects, mathematicians, astronomers, and artists. In their time, they built cities as grand and beautiful as any in Europe or the Far East. They were one of only a few people who invented the zero, a concept extremely important in mathematics. According to some calculations, their measurement of the length of the year was more accurate than that of the Europeans when they arrived in the New World. And their artists created a style that is considered one of the great art forms of history, and is today studied by artists throughout the world. What’s more, they were one of only three civilizations that invented a complete system of writing. In this booklet, you will learn about ancient Maya writing and about the ancient Maya civilization. For many years the ancient Maya were a mystery to the world. Their writing could not be read by anyone, not even modern Maya people. Now, in just the last 25 years, the ‘Maya 6 Code’ has been largely broken and it is possible to understand much of what was written on monuments, stelae, tablets, vases, and other objects made by the ancient Maya. Modern Mayan languages, spoken today in México and Guatemala, share roots with the language of the ancient Maya. And Chorti, the modern Maya language of eastern Guatemala, is the direct descendant of the language of the ancient Maya. In fact, much of what is now known about the ancient Maya language has been gleaned from modern Maya languages, especially Yucatec, spoken in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, and Chorti (written more correctly as Ch’orti’). Maya glyphs and the ancient Maya language were used in all the cities of the ancient Maya world, including the famous cities of Palenque, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Quiriquá, Copán and Tikal. While these great cities flourished, Europe languished in the Dark Ages. 7 8 The Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, México. Below, the Palace at Palenque, Mexico. 9 The Main Plaza at Tikal, Guatemala. The Beautiful Ball Court at Copán, Honduras 10 A giant stela at Quiriguá in Guatemala 11 Above, the Observatory at Chichen Itza in Mexico The Castle at Chichen Itza 12 THE BASICS OF ANCIENT MAYA WRITING Maya writing is composed of various signs and symbols. These signs and symbols are often called ‘hieroglyphs,’ or more simply ‘glyphs.’ To most of us, these glyphs look like pictures, but it is often hard to say what they are pictures of, as for example, the following: Glyphs from a stela at Piedras Negras in México 13 Unlike European languages, like English and Spanish, the ancient Maya writing did not use letters to spell words. Instead, they used a combination of glyphs that stood either for syllables, or for whole words. We will call the glyphs that stood for syllables ‘syllable glyphs,’ and we’ll call the glyphs that stood for whole words ‘logos.’ (The technically correct terms are ‘syllabogram’ and ‘logogram.’) It may seem complicated to use a combination of sounds and signs to make words, but we do the very same thing all the time. For example, you have seen this sign: Everyone knows that this sign means “one way to the right.” The “one way” part is spelled out in letters, as usual. But the “to the right” part is given only by the arrow pointing to the right. Thus, this street sign is a combination of words and pictures that is very much like the way the Maya wrote things. After all, when a picture is worth a thousand words, why spell it out? 14 GLYPHS THAT STAND FOR SYLLABLES The sounds in the ancient Maya language were mostly the same kind of sounds we have in English. They had the same vowels a, e, i, o, and u. In most cases, these vowels are pronounced as they are in Spanish today. Thus, a is pronounced like the a in father; e is like a long a as in day; i is like a long e as in keep; o is a long o as in dose; and u is like a long u as in duke. The Maya also had symbols for most consonants joined to a vowel. So, they had the syllables cha, che, chi, cho, chu; la, le, li, lo, lu; ma, me, mi, mo, mu; ta, te, ti, to, tu; and so forth. Following the norm for Spanish, we will let the letter j be pronounced like an ‘h,’ and x is pronounced like ‘sh.’ The ancient Maya had glyphs only for those syllables that ended in a vowel. When they needed a syllable that ended in a consonant, they would put two glyphs together. For example, if they wanted to make the sound like the English word ‘note’ they would use the syllables no + to and not pronounce the last o. An easy way to write this is: no-t(o) where the parentheses show that the last o is silent. Although the last vowel is silent, in Maya writing the second vowel will usually be the same as the first vowel. (This is called the rule of ‘synharmony.’) For example, you would generally not write ‘note’ as no-t(e) because the silent vowel is not the same as the vowel that comes before it. 15 There is also sometimes ‘disharmony’ between vowels, meaning that the silent vowel is different from the previous vowel. Disharmony was often usually used when the Maya wanted to make a vowel much longer than normal, or different in some other way from the normal vowel sound. Thus, for example, to write noote (where the double oo indicates a very long vowel), they could write no-t(i). Since the silent vowel is i rather than the expected o, we know that they wanted the o to be long. The ancient Maya had some sounds that are not used in English or Spanish, but are common in modern Maya languages. These sounds are called ‘glottal stops,’ or simply ‘stops.’ In English, these are combinations of a consonant and a vowel that are a little bit explosive when you say them together. For example, when you say hot opal, the t and the o sounds said together create a stop. We signify stops with an apostrophe, for example t’o for the t and o sound in hot opal. Thus, to is pronounced like ‘toe,’ but t’o is pronounced like the t o sound from ‘hot opal.’ (In the ancient Maya language the consonant b was only used with a glottal stop, like the b in “rob.”) Unlike most modern languages, the Maya usually had more than one way to write a syllable. Thus, for example, while we always write the sound ma as m+a, the Maya had many ways to write the sound ma. So, two people named Maria might spell their names very differently in Maya glyphs. As you will soon 16 learn, the Maya scribes were very creative and intelligent men and women who loved to have fun with their language. Okay, so how did the Maya write their syllable glyphs? Look at the chart on the next page and you will see.
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